Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/132

122 to be a coward! That single thought filled his mind. The bottom of his kimono, sticky with sweat and soy, clung around his legs. He tucked it up. In the corridor a dim ten-candle power light, covered with cobwebs, was hanging from the sloping roof. Just there someone sprang out on him, crying, “Help, here’s one!” but he soon extricated himself and ran.

In front of the fermenting chamber a gang of thugs awaited something.

Then there was a ferocious shouting and the report of a gun. His friends kept pressing in from the corridor and from the open space in front of the barrelling-shop.

In the darkness at the right Machida made out the white face of Handa, holding up a mat folded in two as a shield, and bending over slightly and saying something.

“Take care, it’s dangerous!” He caught these words as he got close to him.

“What? D’ye think we can be hanging back now?” thought Machida, as he straightened himself up in defiance and went forward towards the fermenting chamber. A series of shots followed. The bullets sounded as if they had struck a barrel and gone right through. Handa and the others followed behind Machida. In front of the chamber, wrapped in the thick darkness and the smoke, a crowd of people seethed. Machida, raising sudenlysuddenly [sic] the long pole he had taken from someone, rushed at them. But just in front of where a big twenty-gallon barrel lay, almost as if he had tripped over a stone, his body crumpled up and he swayed and